Fossil Fuel Free In Antarctica: An Australian Demonstration Project With Hydrogen
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 08.15.06
“The Australian Government's hydrogen demonstration project , led by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), will operate out of Mawson station and a nearby penguin-monitoring field camp at Béchervaise Island, this summer. The project – the first of its kind in Antarctica – aims to investigate safety and operational aspects of using hydrogen, with a long-term view to running Australia's Antarctic field camps and stations without fossil fuels….Hydrogen generated by the wind turbines will also be stored in high pressure vessels at Mawson. If the demonstration project is a success, this hydrogen could be used to provide electricity and heating for the station when the wind drops, through a large scale fuel cell system or in an internal combustion engine generator”. Design credits for system components are described on this page. System configuration and overall project relationships are described on this page .
The project has symbolic importance well beyond practical benefits to Mawson Station. By adapting solar-to-hydrogen technology to Antarctic extremes, the equipment's wider utility in the most problematic winter conditions will have been proven. And, the “branding” of alternative energy gets a public relations boost. But, most important of all, we think, is that the project puts one more damper on naysayers who echo the myth that “hydrogen is not practical.”
It's well understood that technology prototypes cost orders of magnitude more than commodity items that might grow out of the prototyping experience. The unique thing about this Antarctic prototype, however, is that it's cost effectiveness is almost dimensionless during the coldest period of the year, when no new fossil fuels can be brought in, a lengthy time during which Station personnel must be absolutely self reliant. In that sense, the project is a metaphor for a society more in tune with the wider risks of climate change and long term depletion of fossil fuel reserves.
Via: Technology Trends .
They won't be running their camps without fossil fuels. Fossil fuels were used to extract the ore needed to make the turbines and all the other equipment, to transport those ores to a processesing plant, to transport the composite material to a manufacturing facility and to transport the final products to the facility.
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So which is better, use fossil fuels to make this equipment, both as feedstock and energy input, or burn it in SUV's and such?
Way to nit pick. They could have burned tires and say screw the planet. So whats better? Trying or not trying? Fossil fuels will always be used.
Sounds like the same argument the author from "Peak oil" used when I said we can switch to alternative energy sources and his argument was it takes as much oil to build a solar electricity system for a household as it does to build an SUV, which obviously makes little sense.
Does it bug anyone else that people are even on the continent of Antartica to begin with? I know it's "important research" and all blah blah blah, but I'd rather know that there is nothing out there except happy penguins and ice caps.
Wouldn't batteries or a flywheel be a better way of storing the engergy.
I think they should go ahead and build solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells before they build SUV's, but I think we need to remain aware of the fact that even these are not truly sustainable.
The important thing is to head in the right direction - away from fossil fuels. burning fossil fuels to get to a place where we are free of them may be a necessary evil.
Every star in the sky is a huge ball of burning hydrogen, which is produced in the vacuum of space. No water needed. How is this done?
Nuclear fusion.
thats crazy
shake it like a polaroid picture!
no this is bad